Microsoft supports Linux desktop
Summary: When Microsoft released Skype for Linux, it finally started supporting Linux desktop applications. Can Office for Linux be next!!?
With Skype 4 for Linux, Microsoft has its first Linux desktop application.
No, that's not my prediction for Microsoft's mysterious Monday announcement. No, it's what Microsoft is already doing with last week's unexpected release of Skype 4 for Linux. Microsoft--Microsoft!--of all companies has just shipped its first mass-market, end-user Linux desktop program.
It really wasn't surprising that Microsoft saw the light of Linux on servers when they started supporting major Linux distributions -- CentOS, openSUSE, SUSE Linux, and Ubuntu -- on Windows Azure. Ballmer and the rest of Microsoft's brass may not like it one darn bit, but they know that people want Linux servers on the cloud so they had to give it to them.
In fact, Microsoft itself is using Linux for its services. Ironically enough, Microsoft has moved Skype from its peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture to one built around... wait for it: Linux servers.
Earlier this year, Immunity Security's senior security researcher Kostya Kortchinsky discovered that Microsoft had replaced Skype's network of "supernodes" Skype user PCs with sufficient bandwidth, processing horsepower, and system resources to handle Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls and traffic control with 10,000 Microsoft/Skype hosted supernodes. According to Kortchinsky, and later tacitly confirmed by Microsoft, these new Skype servers are running Linux with grsecurity, server patches.
The desktop is another story though. While I use the Linux desktop, Linux Mint 13 for the most part, every day, I know there aren't that many of us. Even now, hardware vendors like Nvidia don't give Linux anything like enough support and if you want to buy a laptop or desktop with Linux pre-installed you need to look to small vendors such as System76 and ZaReason.
Despite that though Microsoft is finally offering a desktop program for Linux. If you consider Microsoft's long bitter history with Linux, that's amazing. There's only one reason why they'd do it: They think that they can make money from it.
So, perhaps the Linux desktop is indeed bigger than the 1% of the market it's usually given. Indeed, it appears that the Linux desktop has been growing over the last year.
Will Linux on the desktop ever threaten to catch up with Windows on the desktop? Nah. But, it does seem that Microsoft, for the first time ever, thinks there's enough Linux desktop users out there that they're worth supporting. Who would have thought it? Can Microsoft Office for Linux be far behind!!?
Related Stories:
Microsoft unexpectedly ships a new version of Skype for Linux
Linus Torvalds F-bombs Nvidia over lack of Linux support
Skype jumps the shark: Seven alternative VoIP services
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Talkback
Microsoft supports Linux desktop
thats too much to ask
There are proprietary apps for Linux
Microsoft supports Linux desktop
63% of the server world runs Unix/Linux
Nah
60% of smartphones - Linux, 30-35% of tablets - Linux ...
One thing is quite sure: Linux is now the world's NUMBER ONE platform of new non-mobile and mobile devices. What's amazing is that editors and advocates of most of IT-media don't know and don't understand this change.
What's your point?
LOL
No one is "stuck" or "forced" to use Linux
On the other hand, millions of people on Windows have never even heard of alternative options or their employer uses it so they're "stuck" with it at work. And since that's the only thing they ever learned to use, they think it's easier to have the same OS at home as well.
I know SVJN's stuff comes off as MS bashing in many ways -- even in ways that I as an ardent Linux fan would never do it. Saying Linux desktop is dead is just as ignorant as saying Linux will be the dominant desktop in the world in the next few years.
And you saying some linux users are stuck with it and need help or encouragement to move on to Windows falls in exactly the same category of comments.
NO one can predict the future -- you have your reasons for liking Windows, and the we other 20 million plus Ubuntu users have ours for sticking with (not getting stuck with) Linux.
I wouldn't use that as a metric as to the percentage
I'll agree with the stats that show it at 1%.
But for MS [i]continuing[/i] to make a Linux version of Skype is no big deal - they have the all the code, all the designers, everything, so why not?
It's not like it's really costing them anything extra, or having to go a new direction from scratch. And that little money just adds to the bottom line of the purchase (and all this after you warned us that Skype for Linux was dead after the sale).
But MS Office for Linux? You [b]have[/b] to be joking - how much money would they need to spend to create a Linux version, and how much money would they actually make back, considering how much they could charge for the software itself, and the 1% userbase that swears it will never go MS Office, as Libre and Open Office are more then adaquate?
MS Office for Linux could be a game changer for many parties
1. OEMs wouldn't have to install Windows. Instead, they could purchase MS Office licenses and send machine preinstalled with Linux for those who care more about MS Office than they do about Windows.
2. A LOT many organizations would be able to save a TON of money if they didn't have to purchase both MS Windows AND MS Office; they could just buy MS Office and leave Windows out of the equation.
3. MANY Linux users who presently bitch about MS Office might be doing it because of the fact that they can't have it. (I personally think LibreOffice is better than MS Office in many ways except the presets and fancy effects MS Office allows you to put in files and shapes). If that was an option, many of these users would buy it -- especially with student discounts, employer discounts, etc. I'm basing this on the fact that Linux gaming has been proving that linux users can spend a serious amount of money (the recent Humble Indie bundle exploded on Linux and made millions in record time after launch)
So, for Microsoft, none of these reasons are particularly appealing. Especially when they presently have a perfect ecosystem of lockdown with their OS. On the other hand, if they're happy to support Mac despite some of the same effect as above already occurring for that platform, if MS sees the potential of increased revenue from it, I don't see why they would shy away.
Linux Desktop
MS has, in the past, claimed that the size of Linux usage was nearly the same as Mac. If so then it is in their interest to support the market.
too small a market
Can Office for Linux be next!!?
P.S. Skype supported the Linux desktop long before they were acquired by Microsoft. Skype 4 was merely [u]upgraded[/u] from a prior version.
skype is a useful tool.
i'm also pretty sure there will never be a msoffice for linux because linux users will not buy it.
Office for Linux...
Current Linux users who don't really need office - you're probably right. There may be a number of people using Office under Windows right now, who would switch to Linux and use office there if it were available.
The rub here is that, in Microsoft's opinion, such a user would be no net gain for Office, and would be a net loss for Windows, so the extra cost of porting Office to Linux wouldn't be justified by the revenue.
Now on Android, there's a different story - I would wager that a very large subset of Android users would use Office if it were available. It would be pretty naive to think Microsoft isn't at least testing the waters internally with Android/iOS Office applications in the event that Windows RT fails to get off the ground.
I will buy MS Office for Linux if it exists
There's a market out there
90% of people don't need MS Office...